


I'm Dating the Undertaker?

by Iben



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bane owns a garden center, Family Issues, M/M, No details about the undertaking business, Small Towns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-23 07:44:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9646835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iben/pseuds/Iben
Summary: It wasn't a date. We fucked because it was easy, more than anything else. At least that was my excuse, I was too lazy to drive to Gotham to get laid. I didn't really know what his thoughts on the matter were, but he didn't want it to get out any more than I did. I did not need the entire village to know I was fooling around with the peculiar undertaker, and I imagined he had a few different reasons of his own regarding me, too.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I found this on my hard drive. I wrote it about two years ago and it was initially meant to be a longer story, but after these seven chapters I felt done with it. I had fun writing it, so I thought I could post it and maybe there is someone who will have fun reading it. It's very much an AU, so I have taken some fairly large liberties with the characters, just so you know. Also, I want to say that I have nothing against undertakers whatsoever :)

I saw the car when it came around the bend up the road. It wasn't the hearse, but there was no mistaking that streamlined silver thing, either. I had wondered how he could afford it; sure, people kept dying, but the undertaking business couldn't exactly be booming. Unless he was secretly poisoning people at old people's homes.

Talia was on her knees, thinning out seedlings, her face obscured by that straw hat she'd bought recently. She looked to be completely absorbed by her work; I could hear her humming. She was in commute with nature, although she hated when I said that. 

I put down my pitchfork and started walking back towards the building. We were open, but there weren't a lot of customers at half past ten on a Wednesday morning. Mrs Lee was at the check-out, though, she was here almost every day, there was something not quite right with her. Selina was behind the counter and she smiled at me over Mrs Lee's head when I walked past. I took off my gloves and shoved them in my pocket before I headed out to the parking lot. 

Jonathan stood by his flashy car, smoking, and the frames of his glasses caught the sunlight. He was, as always, dressed in an impeccable, expensive looking suit.

“Hello,” he said when I walked up to him.

“Hi.”

He dropped his cigarette and stepped on it, twisting the tip of his shoe once against the ground. 

“I thought I'd take a look at the spring colors,” he said. 

“Okay.”

I started walking and he followed. I walked around the shop, rather than through it. I thought about his shoes and the ground here, but it wasn't too muddy.

“Business is good?” he said.

“Yeah.”

I didn't reciprocate the question. I led the way to greenhouse one. The air in there was warm and humid. Aside from the sound of a sprinkler, it was quiet. 

“There's going to be a lot of blue this year,” Jonathan said as he looked at the flowers. “It's the latest trend. A lot more closed caskets too, with large centerpieces on top, so that will be good for you.”

He smiled a small smile. 

“A large centerpiece is a lot more expensive than a corsage or a small bouquet,” he added. As if couldn't work that out myself, I sold the fucking things, didn't I?

I wasn't sure he wasn't just making these things up. Trends when it came to funerals sounded a bit artificial to my ears. 

He made a doubtful face. “I'm not so sure about these orange irises,” he said. “They're a little bright.”

“They're for people who aren't dead.”

He turned his gaze to me. He had enormous, blue eyes behind those glasses of his, a face with regular features and pronounced cheek bones. 

“Are you done?” I asked. 

“Mm, yes.” He shot a last look at the rows of flowers and nodded a little. 

Right next to the greenhouse was a small shed. We kept gardening tools and things in there. As soon as I had closed the door behind us we kissed. The kissing was short, a little perfunctory even. I didn't think he liked kissing, or at least not kissing me, but it was a way to get things started. 

I grabbed the front of his pants. 

“Um... have you washed your hands? These pants are dry-clean only...”

It was almost as if he wanted to ruin the mood, and we were in a damn garden shed so there wasn't a whole lot of mood to begin with.

“Yes,” I said, because if I didn't he'd just keep on nagging about it. He was such a nitpicker.

I could feel him through his pants, though, the reaction I got there mirroring my own. 

“How much time do we have?” he asked.

“Enough.”

We got our pants unbuttoned, his dry-clean only, and my cargo ones. Pretty soon I was leaning forward, my hands on the work-bench, and he had his fingers in my ass. 

“I'm ready,” I said after a while. 

He removed his fingers and I felt him line up his dick instead. I pushed back against him as he pushed inside and it felt pretty fucking great, a very satisfying kind of intrusion. He set a rather fast pace, bordering on rough, but it felt good. His hands were on my hips, one of them sticky from the lube. 

We didn't always have time for this, and then we just jacked each other off. I'd blown him once, but then he didn't reciprocate so I didn't offer again. I didn't mind that he didn't, not really, but he was on a too high horse to begin with, so I didn't need to be on my knees for him. To be fair he hadn't asked me to.

He changed the angle of his thrusts.

“Oh fuck...” It came out a half-whispered moan and my breathing turned into a heavy staccato. I could hear him breathe jerkily behind me too. 

I still had both of my hands on the work bench, I was staring at the row of pots there but everything was reduced to the feeling of him, moving inside me. I could come like this, but I hadn't told him, because we were always pressed for time and I honestly didn't know how long he could last. 

I wrapped my hand around my hard-on and jerked off in quick strokes while he kept moving his hips and the pleasure kept tightening in my groin until I came. 

I was catching my breath, or trying to, while he finished. I didn't really like having someone inside me after I had come, but a good thing about Jonathan was that he never made a long story of it after I was done. I'd dated a guy once who took forever and I always had to ask him to pull out. We probably could have worked that out, but I wasn't that into him and we broke up. 

Jonathan panted behind me, then he pulled out. 

“Do you have...” he began and I handed him a roll of kitchen paper. 

We cleaned ourselves up. I wiped off the bench too, because I had come over it. 

“No one thinks it strange that there are condoms in the trash here?” he said.

I frowned at him.

“No one goes through the trash,” I said. 

After only a short minute he looked as immaculate as when he had arrived, his shirt neatly tucked into his pants. 

“Well, as always, this was fun,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“I better get going.”

I nodded. 

I didn't walk him back to his car. It wasn't a date. We fucked because it was easy, more than anything else. At least that was my excuse, I was too lazy to drive to Gotham to get laid. I didn't really know what his thoughts on the matter were, but he didn't want it to get out any more than I did. I did not need the entire village to know I was fooling around with the peculiar undertaker, and I imagined he had a few different reasons of his own regarding me, too. 

I hadn't even told Talia. She was still humming at the seedlings when I got back. 

“Did Crane approve?” she asked, raising her voice a little to be heard over to where I was. 

“Does it matter? He's gonna sell them our stuff either way.”

She smiled. 

“Yeah, but he's very particular,” she said.

He was. He'd been coming by ever so often to inspect flowers or discuss different wreaths and things even before he and I started our thing, which was why it didn't raise any eyebrows.

“Or maybe it's the bereaved, I don't know,” Talia said. 

I lit a cigarette. 

“I need help with the big bags,” she said. “You want to do it now, or after a coffee break?”

“After, I think.”

I had left town and gone to university. No one expected me to do that, which was probably part of the reason I did it. But there were more reasons. I wasn't an idiot, despite the teenage delinquency, and I knew I had the brains to do it. Also, I was gay and staying in this village all my life didn't seem like an option. Last, but maybe not least, I wasn't sure, I wanted my mom and dad to be proud of me.

So I had a business degree, but I spent part of that morning helping Talia to load bags of fertilizer onto a barrow. I thought a bit about Jonathan while we were working. His nice suits and shoes. I had never actually seen him out of them, because we never got to that state of undress. 

“You want me to wheel it over?” I asked.

“No, I can do it,” Talia replied. 

She could, but just barely. I could see the muscles in her arms and legs flex. She'd get angry if I offered again, though, so I didn't. 

After work I went home. Talia and I shared an apartment in a two-story building that held six apartments in all. It had been three larger homes once, but it had been converted into smaller ones when places to live around her got scarce and people who could afford big houses preferred the stand alone kind. Since we were on the second floor we didn't have a garden. I didn't mind. I liked my job just fine, but it was a job. 

Talia wasn't back yet. I had a shower and got dressed again, jeans and a t-shirt. My black hoodie was on the floor of my bedroom and I picked it up and smelled it. It had to go in the laundry, but I had other ones, somewhere. 

I heard the key in the door as I was rummaging through my closet and then Talia's voice:

“Bane?”

She popped her head through the door. 

“What are you doing?”

“I'm looking.”

“For what?”

I didn't reply, because why did she have to know?

“Are you going down to the pub?” she asked instead.

“Yeah.”

“Okay, I might see you there then, I'm going too. I just need to have a shower.”

At least she didn't ask me to wait for her, and if she had I might have said no. She said she was going to have a shower, which for a normal person took only a few minutes. For her it could take hours, because she would find other things to do before she even got in the shower, and then she'd walk around with a towel wrapped around her head doing a thousand other things, sorting through the mail on the kitchen table or paint her toenails or whatever. 

I didn't find a hoodie and pulled on a gray sweater instead. I grabbed my jacket and headed towards the door.

“If you see Bruce, will you tell him I'll be there soon?” Talia called from her bedroom.

“Yeah.”

The local pub wasn't anything special. The good thing about it, which could also be the bad sometimes, was that you could always find people you knew there. I was meeting Barsad and some other friends there today, but the first people I ran into were my parents. They were by a table in the dining section. I would have missed them if I'd gone in through the other door. 

“Hi!” Mom smiled when she spotted me and I smiled back.

“Hi.”

Dad looked up too. 

“Are you here to eat?” Mom asked. 

“No. Well yes, but I'm meeting some friends.”

She looked nice, a bit dressed up in a blue dress and what I thought were new earrings.

“Are you celebrating something?” I asked.

“Nothing in particular,” Dad said. 

“We just thought we'd go out and eat, for once,” Mom said. “This is a nice sweater.” She stroked my arm. “You should wear things like this more often, it looks good on you.”

“Yeah, well, have a nice date,” I said. 

I ducked my head as I went through the low doorway into the pub. Barsad was already there, sitting by the bar. 

“You look like an old man, sitting here alone with your beer,” I said.

He smiled. 

“Your parents are in there,” he said, jerking his head in the direction of the restaurant.

“I know, I saw them.”

I ordered a beer and had a glance around.

“I'm thinking about going to France,” Barsad said.

“Why?”

I thought about when we were teenagers and talked, fantasized really, about leaving this place and go join the French Foreign Legion. 

“Hot chicks?” he said and I smiled.

“All right, but what are you going to do there?”

He shrugged a little.

“I've got some money saved, might take a holiday. Wanna come?”

“Can't. This is the busiest time of the year for us.”

I had been to France on holidays with my family. I figured going there with Barsad would be a whole lot different. Hot guys. I even spoke a bit of French. 

“If you haven't gone come October, I might,” I said. 

Barsad smiled.

“All right,” he said. “To French girls, then, and guys.”

He raised his glass. I indulged him and clinked my glass against his.


	2. Chapter 2

It was raining and the morning light was dulled by the overcast sky. I pulled on sweatpants, a t-shirt and a hoodie, then put on my running shoes in the hall. A pair of unfamiliar, men-sized sneakers were by the door. I had a lot of sneakers, but I did actually recognize all of mine and these were a couple of sizes too small at that. Seemed like Bruce was here, behind Talia's closed bedroom door. 

I tied the door key to the the strings at the waistband of my pants before I headed out. It was early and the weather was anything but nice, so I hardly saw any people and no one saw me. I kept a slow, steady pace, the crunching of my steps and my pulse and breaths the only sounds in my ears. The long route or the short route, I had to decide by the time I reached the church because that's where they parted ways. I always stuck to the same ones, because I had measured them so I knew how long they were and I didn't have to think, my feet knew the way by themselves. 

I took the long one. I had today off, I wasn't in a hurry and even though the rain had already soaked both my shirts I liked the solitude it resulted in. No one ran the exact the same routes I did, I probably would have changed them if that were the case, but I sometimes met other joggers or people walking their dogs.

When I got back I could hear Talia and Bruce talking in the kitchen and the smell of coffee drifted out to the hall. I headed straight for the bathroom, peeled off my drenched clothes and got in the shower. I'd gotten a haircut last week and I still wasn't used to how my head felt under my hands, the short bristles at the neck. 

My razor was on the shelf in the shower. I knew it was mine because it was black, and not pink or purple or any of the other colors the kinds that Talia bought were. It had no business being in the shower, because I only ever shaved my face, which meant she had stolen it. That put me in a bit of a bad mood, I'd told her to stop doing that. 

I dried myself off and looked in the bathroom cabinet. I didn't have any extra blades. Great. I had an electric razor, it was in the cupboard under the sink, so I took that out. It sounded like a fucking hedge trimmer though, that was really my main objection. 

I had a scar that cut through my mouth, and another one going up my right cheek. On a good day I thought they looked sort of badass, in a devil-may-care sort of way, on a bad day I thought they looked nasty. 

When I had gotten dressed I went into the kitchen. Talia and Bruce looked like they were both getting ready to leave.

“Good morning,” Bruce said and smiled a little.

“'Morning.”

After they had left the apartment got quiet. I had breakfast, then brewed a fresh pot of coffee and sat at the kitchen table, reading. Maybe this wasn't normal, liking peace and quiet this much. I was only twenty-eight. But I liked going out too, I liked seeing friends, and listening to music. I liked sex.

**

Jonathan's hand around my dick felt pretty great, his other hand holding my testicles as well. I was gripping his. Our breaths seemed loud in the confined space. I refused point-blank to have sex in the funeral home, but in the back of the garden center's delivery van parked out back was fine. 

I was looking down at him in my hand, myself in his. Then I looked up and he did too. He was ridiculously handsome. He wasn't wearing his glasses right now either, and that made his face seem more open. Or maybe that was because he was on the brink to orgasm. 

He came and his breath got caught in his throat, and the sight pushed me closer. A couple more strokes and then I came too. On his clothes. I thought that was rather great, actually.

“Fuck,” he said.

I sat back and leaned against the inside wall of the van. I took a few deep breaths. 

“The perils of being a gay man,” I said.

He didn't look as if he thought that was particularly funny. 

“Do you have any tissues?”

I did, because this wasn't the first time we did this here. 

“This is getting kind of stupid,” I said as I wiped myself off. 

“What is?” He was doing the same and there was almost a look of disgust on his face when he looked down at his clothes. 

“I'll wipe it off for you, if you think it's that vile,” I said.

“No. It's just that this shirt...” He sighed. “You wouldn't understand, anyway.”

I looked at him. He was straightening his clothes. 

“Jerking each other off in the back of a van,” I said. “That's what's stupid.”

“Well, you're the one who won't come inside.”

The very idea was repulsive. There were dead people in there. It smelled funny. That he actually worked in there was repulsive, when you thought about it. I decided not to think about it.

“I'm twenty-eight, having sex in a car...” It was rather pathetic. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-seven.”

That's right, he was one year younger than I was. I remembered that from school.

“Don't you live alone?” I said. We could do it there. Maybe even get naked. I hadn't suggested it before, because it was easier to dismiss what we were doing as something that wasn't planned when we didn't actually plan it. 

Jonathan turned his gaze to me. 

“People would talk,” he said. 

Let them talk. A part of me wanted to say that. Another part of me thought of his stuck-up manners and of how he was a tad creepy. A lot of people thought the same thing and that's what they would talk about. This was a really small village, it would spread like wildfire. 

“Are you in the closet?” I asked.

“No.” He made a face as if that notion was ridiculous. “But I have a reputation to think about.”

“So it's just that you're fucking me you don't want people to know?” 

He smiled a small smile. “We move in very different circles.”

That was ludicrous. 

“You mean the dead ones versus the alive ones?” I said. “You're not as great a fuck as you seem to think you are.”

He looked at me and I looked back. 

“Oh, and by that you mean to say that you are?” he said then, raising his eyebrows a little. 

This discussion was so unnecessary. I sighed.

“This is pointless,” I said. “You're all right, I don't have any complaints.” I felt a bit bad about suggesting he wasn't any good. “You're a handsome guy, you're just a weirdo.” 

He frowned a little. 

“Well, I don't have any complaints either. You've got a great body. It's just a pity about...”

He made a gesture towards his own face, indicating the places where my face was lined with scars. I stared at him.

“Fuck you,” I said. I got up, as much as the ceiling allowed, and manhandled him out the back of the van. 

He looked to be bit shaken by that.

“Fuck off,” I said. 

I drove off. The fucking gall of it. I sure as hell wasn't going to have sex with him again, the rude little shit.

I got back to work and I had paperwork to deal with, so I got busy with that. After a little while I started thinking, though, despite the numbers I had in front of me. Maybe he really did think that. Whenever we fucked, like proper fucking, it was always from behind. That was mainly because it was easiest, being in some cramped place trying to get it done quickly. But what if he actually didn't like the look of me? 

I shouldn't care. He was just the weird undertaker, who nobody liked. He'd always been like that. I remembered when we were kids, he had been stuck-up then too. The odd guy who lived with his grandparents, who ran the funeral home back then and used the hearse as their family car. He had a nickname, the other kids called him Scarecrow because he was scrawny and he always wore clothes that looked old. 

Fuck. I pulled a hand over my face, felt the scar tissue against my fingers. 

I wasn't in a very good mood, but I had promised to meet some friends at the pub in the next village that night, so after I had finished work I went home and had a shower and changed my clothes. Talia was coming too and she hitched a ride with me.

“Bruce isn't coming?” I asked.

“Yes he is, but he wasn't sure when he could get off work, so he might be a little late.”

I could feel her looking at me.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?”

“I don't know. Bookkeeping hardships?”

“Yes, you spend too much on tulips.”

“But I love tulips.”

I smiled a little. It was quiet for a moment. It was dark in the compartment and outside the windows too, except for the cone of light made by the headlights. 

“Bruce used to date this woman,” Talia said then.

“Who?”

“Harvey's new girlfriend, the one we're all meeting tonight.”

Right, her. I shot a glance at Talia. 

“He obviously stopped dating her,” I said.

“Yes. But it can't always be that simple, not for you guys either. Sometimes feelings linger.”

I thought about a guy I was in love with for ages, it was back at university, but he never felt the same way about me, no matter how much I pined. 

“Was it serious?” I asked. “The two of them?”

“Yes. Very serious. He proposed.”

I thought that over for a moment.

“You don't think he's really stuck at work?” I said then.

“I don't know.”

We had arrived at the pub. The windows glowed yellow and there were lanterns on the tables outside, where the smokers congregated. We didn't get out of the car right away.

“But I'm going to be nice, and lovely,” Talia said.

“You always are.”

She smiled at me. 

Inside it was crowded and loud, voices and clinking glass and laughter mashed together to a wall of sound. I was tall enough to see over most people's heads and I spotted our party by a table.

“Wait,” Talia said.

People heading towards the bar had cut between us. When they had passed Talia took my hand. 

“Hi!” Harvey's smile was broad when we reached the table. He was a genuinely nice guy, probably one of the most decent men I knew.

The woman sitting next to him had a heart-shaped face, dark hair and blue eyes. 

Selina took it upon herself to make the introductions.

“Rachel, she said, meet our very old friends, Talia and Bane.”

“Hi,” Rachel said, extending her hand first to Talia, and then to me. “Bane? Is that really your name?”

“Dorrance,” I said and shook her hand.

“I'm sure there's a very interesting story behind that nickname, though,” she said.

“Not really.”

“Yes there is,” Selina said. “Wait until we've had a few and we'll tell you.”

I gave Selina an annoyed glare.

The others at the table were people I already knew. 

“I'm gonna get a beer,” I said. I looked questioningly at Talia.

“I think I'd rather have a glass of wine,” she said.

“Finally, someone with good taste,” Rachel said and smiled.

Talia smiled back. You would never have guessed she felt anything other than warmth towards this woman. 

“Will you go?” Talia said then, looking at me. 

I nodded. 

“You're kind of built for that sort of thing,” Selina said. “Can you get me another beer too?”

She seemed to have had a few already.

“Sure,” I said. 

Even though I didn't really feel up to a night out, it was nice catching up with Harvey and the others. Well, I saw Selina almost every day at work so there wasn't a whole lot of catching up to do. She got shitface drunk, though, and by the end of the night we had to take her car keys. 

“I'll drive you home,” I said when we were in the parking lot. 

“Oh, you're so nice,” she said and put her arms around my neck, leaning her head against me. “You're so nice and so handsome and so beefy, I wish you were straight.”

“All right.”

Harvey laughed. 

“Have fun getting her home,” he said. “It was good seeing you all.”

“Yeah, it was great meeting all of you,” Rachel said. “I hope we can do it again soon.”

“Yes, it was so great!” Selina said to her. She was still clinging to me. “You're really great, and so beautiful!”

Rachel laughed a little.

“You too,” she said.

“See you,” Harvey said.

They walked off towards Harvey's car. I got the car key out of my pocket and chucked it to Talia.

“I'll put her in the back,” I said. 

I got Selina into the backseat and buckled her seat-belt for her. When we got to her house she had fallen asleep.

“Why did she drink so much?” Talia said. “She had no excuse. I had the excuse.”

Bruce had been a no-show. 

“You get her inside,” she said. 

I shot her a look, failing to see the fairness of that. But I got Selina out of the car and to her front door.

“Where are your keys?” I asked her. 

“What?”

“Your keys?

She had a small handbag and I sifted through it, while holding her upright. I found it and unlocked the door.

“You want a nightcap?” she said when we got inside.

“No. You're going to bed.”

Her place was small, but very cozy. I got her into the bedroom and onto the bed. I took off her shoes. She always wore great shoes, except at work. 

“I'm gonna be so embarrassed about this tomorrow,” she said. “Technically you're my boss.”

“Yeah.”

I went into the kitchen and fetched a glass of water, then told her to drink it. 

“You can sleep here,” she said. “There's room for you too.”

“I'm not sleeping here. Drink up.”

“Tell Talia I'm sorry I liked Rachel.”

I wasn't going to tell Talia that. Neither was I going to tell Talia about the rather explicit offer of sex I got after that. Selina would be embarrassed enough, should she remember that tomorrow, and I would too.

She was more or less asleep when I went back out to the car. 

“That took you long enough,” Talia said when I got back in behind the wheel. 

I didn't reply. She was in a pissy mood.

Selina called me the next day, or rather around noon.

“I'm so sorry,” she said. “I can't believe I said those things...”

I didn't really know what to say. “You were drunk.”

“Yeah, but I feel so ashamed now. I'm really sorry.”

“Don't worry about it.”

And let's not talk about it any more, I thought.

“Do you feel better now?”

“Yeah, sort of. Good thing I had today off.”

It was quiet for a second.

“Well, I'll see you tomorrow,” she said then.

“Yeah. Get some rest, and water and food.”

“I will. Thanks. Bye.”


	3. Chapter 3

Mom called and invited me to dinner. I didn't feel like it, but I had no real way of getting out of it. I couldn't come up with a good enough excuse.

The dining room in my parents' house had dark blue walls and the table could seat more than twice as many people as we were. One wall held a big fireplace and at the opposite was a large window that overlooked the back garden. Mostly we ate in the kitchen, but today was a bit fancier because Nyssa had come back from school. 

Nyssa was my youngest sister. She had all the charm and delight of a sixteen year old girl, including the mood swings. During the semesters she was at boarding school. Neither I nor Talia had gone to boarding school, it had been Nyssa's own idea. 

Today she was pissed off, having just found out that she was going to have to work all summer, at the garden center. Talia had said yes before I got a chance to voice my opinion. Talia was in a bad mood too, because Bruce was being distant with her, whatever that meant, and I wasn't feeling very good about things either. 

It was quiet around the table.

“I think this is the most depressing dinner I have ever been to,” Dad said after a while. 

No one said anything.

“What's the matter with you?” he said. “We have this wonderful food, that Mom has prepared for us, and we're together, all of us.”

Mom smiled a little exasperatedly at him. 

“Ah, you're all spoiled brats,” he said after a short moment.

“Maybe we don't want to be here, all of us together,” Nyssa said. 

“Why not?” Dad said. 

“Because what's so great about it?”

“Okay, we can at least try,” Talia said.

She looked at me. I looked back. I had no interest in helping her out. She'd been horrid at home and horrid at work. I watched her purse her lips. 

It was maybe the worst family dinner ever. 

“Let's just not have coffee,” Mom said when we cleared the table. “Everybody can feel free to leave and do whatever it is they want to do.”

I took her up on that. Dad gave me a less than pleased look before I got out of there. 

I really wasn't looking forward to having Nyssa at the garden center all summer. And I didn't feel good about myself either. Usually spending time at the gym, there was one in a nearby village that I went to, or reading a good book, could make me feel better, but it wasn't really working. 

I couldn't blame it all on Jonathan. I'd had these scars since I was six years old and I knew it was the first thing people saw, and I got some nosy questions, so it wasn't exactly anything new. And the lack of sex wasn't an explanation either, because I'd had bouts of that before. 

Still, that Friday I drove to Gotham and went to a club. Maybe because I wanted to prove to myself that there was nothing wrong with me, at least not to all people, and I could pull someone other than the local oddball. Or maybe I simply wanted to think about something else. 

I went home with a guy and the sex was okay. We had breakfast at a coffee shop the next morning, he was pretty cute the day after too and he gave me his number. I drove home, after a goodbye kiss, and I thought about if I should call him or not. He was a journalist, he'd told me, so how exactly would that work out? Let's say I really liked him, and he liked me, would he move to Wayne's Hill and report about the local knitting club? Or would I just piss off, leave Talia with the whole business and go live in Gotham?

I had close to zero chance of meeting someone at home, or at least that's what it felt like. It was Talia's dream to run the garden center and I had agreed to help her. Dad put up the money for us to buy the place when it was for sale. I liked the idea of being self-employed, of being my own boss, and it was a fairly large business, it was a challenge. I thought about Jonathan. Why had he stayed? He hadn't even left to go to university, he took over the funeral home when his grandparents died. Did he really like working there that much? 

**

Monday morning I was showing Nyssa the ropes at the garden center. 

“This really sucks,” she said.

“It wasn't my idea.”

“Can't you fire me?”

I smiled a little. 

“Are you sure you want that?” I said.

She looked at me.

“Probably not.”

I saw Jonathan's car come around the bend. I knew it would, because there was an order placed for decorations to the funeral home and it was a big one. Someone very important must have died. I'd kind of thought it had to be him, given the stately amount of flowers ordered.

I continued explaining to Nyssa what she was supposed to do. 

“Why can't I be in the shop instead?” she said. 

“Because I'm telling you to do this.”

“I'd much rather be in the shop.”

“This is the shop, it's just outdoors.”

“Well, I wanna be indoors.”

“Why?” I frowned at her. 

“I just do.”

I ignored that, she was being annoying because she could, most likely. When she knew what to do I left her and went inside. Selina made a face at me.

“Next time you deal with Scarecrow,” she said. “He is so freaky.”

That was the guy I was sleeping with. Well, had been sleeping with. 

“He talks about formaldehyde and shit,” she said. 

**

I managed to avoid Jonathan for almost another week. It was probably childish, but I was still pissed off with him. Then there was a delivery to the funeral home that I had to do, because it would seem strange if I tried to get out of it. 

Seeing Jonathan, at the back door to the funeral home, was also strange. I carried the flowers inside. It did smell funny in there, even if he said it didn't. 

“Thank you,” he said when we were outside again. He sounded a bit formal.

I just nodded in response. He looked as if he was about so say something more, so I didn't get into the car.

“I, um...” He cleared his throat. “I'm sorry I said what I did about your appearance.”

He glanced at me. 

“I realize it might be a sensitive subject for you,” he said. “But the truth is your scars don't really impede the way you look.” He sounded as if he was reading it out loud from a book. “On the contrary, they make you look rather interesting.”

That was an apology, there was no denying it. I took a deep breath. 

“Sorry I said you were a sorry lay,” I said. 

He nodded a little, straightened his glasses. 

“Well, I have work to do,” he said then. 

“Okay. See you.”

When I got back Talia and Nyssa were at each others throat. I thought I'd stay out of it, but it was getting out of hand and I ended up telling Nyssa to get out. 

“You wanted to be fired, consider yourself fired, and fuck off.”

“Fuck you!”

“Fuck you!”

“You're a fucking faggot!”

“You're a crazy cunt! Now get the hell out of here, or I'll throw you out!”

“Oh my God,” Talia said when Nyssa had stormed out. She put her hand against her forehead for a second. She had tears in her eyes.

“What was that?” I said.

“What was what?”

I looked at her.

“You're telling me you did nothing at all, to piss her off?”

Talia had a look of disbelief on her face.

“You're blaming me?” she said. 

“No, but you've been a right bitch lately.”

“Oh, that's rich. You know, I agree with Nyssa now. Fuck you.”

She walked off. Apparently it was all my fault. I hadn't even been here!

Mom called me after about an hour. I was in the office, doing paper work. 

“What happened?” she said.

“I have no idea.”

“What did you say to Nyssa? She says you called her some very ugly things.”

I wasn't about to repeat what she had called me, so I didn't say anything.

“You have to get over here, and work this out,” Mom said.

“No.”

That was Talia's job, they'd been the ones arguing. 

“I'm serious,” Mom said. “She's very upset. And you're the adult.”

I had things to do, being an adult, that did not involve leaving work in the middle of the day to deal with Nyssa's tantrums. But I went over there, because I could tell just from the way Talia was pulling up weeds from the carrot plot that she was inches away from exploding. 

Mom was in the kitchen and she looked up from the paper she had in front of her when I came in.

“What is going on?” she said. “Has everybody in this family gone crazy when I wasn't looking?”

I had no reply to that. 

“She's in her room,” Mom said and sighed.

I walked up the stairs and knocked on Nyssa's door.

“Are you in there?”

There was no reply, but I opened the door anyway. She was sitting on her bed, her knees pulled up, and her face was red from crying. 

I didn't actually know what to say. Sorry I called you a cunt? She was my little sister, I was sorry I had called her a cunt. But she was so infuriating. Right this moment, though, the way she looked right now, I remembered how young she was. 

She glanced at me. Strangely enough, it had been easier to make up with Jonathan. Or maybe that wasn't so strange, I didn't care as much about him. 

“I don't know what we were fighting about,” I said. 

She picked on the seams of her pants at her knees. 

“I know you don't want me there,” she said. 

“Because you don't want to be there. The only thing you do is complain.”

She grimaced. “You don't even like me,” she said and she started crying. “You've always liked Talia better than me.”

I felt speechless. 

“That's not true,” I said. 

“Yeah, it is. The two of you have always liked each other better, and you think I'm just some silly little girl! You have each other, and your friends, and you have an apartment, and everything, and I have nothing!”

She made me feel like the world's biggest shit, because as much as I wanted to say I had no idea what she was talking about, I did. Talia and I were close, we always had been, even when we got on each other's nerves. Whereas when it came to Nyssa, truth was I didn't really know her. Talia and I were just five years apart, Nyssa was more than ten years younger than I was; I had thought it pretty natural. I had no idea she felt like this.

“You never call me or text me, and it's like I don't even have a big brother... Why can't you like me?”

Fuck. I had screwed up. 

“I'm sorry,” I said and walked over to the bed and sat down on the edge. “I do like you.”

I took her arm and pulled her into a hug. 

“Of course I do,” I said. 

She felt small, her shoulders shaking, her hands clutching at my back. 

“I love you,” I said. 

She was crying really hard. I felt horribly guilty. 

“I'm sorry,” I said. 

She stopped crying after a while and she let go of me. She ran her hands over her cheeks.

“You never tell me anything,” she said.

“Tell you what?”

She shrugged a little. “About your life, or anything.”

“You never tell me anything either.”

“Maybe I want to.” 

“Well, then you can.”

She looked at me and I looked back at her. She had dark brown eyes and long, dark hair. She and Talia had the same build, but other than that they didn't look very much alike. 

Things felt a bit awkward, as if we were both unaccustomed to the strong emotions that had just been on display. 

“We can do more things together, now that you're home for the summer?” I said. 

She nodded.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I guess I overlooked that you grew up.”

“I'm sorry too.”

I stroked her cheek and she smiled. I smiled back. 

“Am I still fired?” she asked.

“No, I think I'll unfire you.”

“Okay, good. I didn't want to tell Dad that I got fired.”

I laughed a little. “Me neither,” I said. “Listen, you don't have to like the work. You're getting paid to do it. Think of what you're going to do with the money.”

“Yeah, I know.”

In a few years time she'd be a grown woman. I found it difficult to imagine what she would be like, but I kind of looked forward to seeing it. 

That evening I cooked dinner for Talia and myself. 

“I think you should talk to Nyssa,” I said. 

“Yes, I will. She drives me crazy, though, I can't deal with that right now.”

“Yeah... But she was very upset.”

I put the food on the table and sat down. It felt backwards, that I had this information, or maybe you could even call it an insight, about Nyssa. Talia talked to her more than I did. 

“I think we should have her over,” I said. “You know, just... see her a bit more, maybe.”

Talia looked at me.

“Oh, she really got you wrapped around her little finger, didn't she?” she said, smiling a little.

“No, that's you,” I said, giving her an annoyed look. 

Her smiled broadened. 

“You're right,” she said then. “We should. She feels left out, I can imagine.”

She looked at me, the kind of look that made you feel stared at after a while.

“You're so sweet,” she said. “I just wish more people would see that. Or rather, I wish the right guy would see it.”

She had a way of turning conversations in all kinds of different directions so you never had any chance to predict them. 

“How did this suddenly become about me?” I said. 

“You should get out more,” she said. “Date. You work too hard.”

I thought about telling her about Jonathan, but I wasn't sure that was back on or what, and it wasn't dating. It was about getting off. 

“I have been really self-absorbed lately,” Talia said. “I know that. I'm going to change that.”

I looked at her. “How are things with Bruce?” I asked.

“I don't think they are anything, at all.” She looked hurt, but trying to hide it in her usual way. “I haven't seen him and he doesn't call. He's busy with work. He's just... pulling away.”

That was a shitty way of breaking up, if that's what he was trying to do. 

“I'm sorry,” I said. “He's an asshole.”

“You can't blame someone for what they feel, or don't feel.”

I made a face and shook my head.

“Just hate him,” I said. “You don't have to be so damn magnanimous.”

She laughed.


	4. Chapter 4

Jonathan and I pretty soon picked up where we had left off. When the animosity had worn off, and it did after that awkward moment of mutual apologizing, there wasn't anything that kept us from continuing. 

I worked a lot, just like Talia had said, and I went to the gym, I ran, I saw my friends, I saw my family – the opportunity to get off with someone, in the middle of all that, with hardly any effort involved, was just too tempting to resist. I didn't want to resist. In fact, having sex with Jonathan was a bit of a silver lining for me. I liked his hands and I liked his dick and the sneaking around part was still a lot less trouble than driving all the way to Gotham. 

However, the secrecy aspect of it did nothing for me. It never had. I guessed some people found that exciting, depending on the circumstances perhaps, but I didn't. It was just practical, for both of us. The garden sheds and the backs of vans weren't, though. 

“I don't think I want to do this anymore,” I said. We were sitting in the back of the van. We had just finished and I had tucked my softening dick back in my pants and zipped up.

Jonathan had been straightening his own clothes, but now he raised his gaze to me. For a second he looked as if he didn't know what to say.

“Oh, ” he said then. “Okay.”

“No, I mean the back of the van.” 

“Oh, I see.”

He'd thought I was ending it. And I'd seen his face fall, even though he probably didn't mean for me to. That made a strange feeling spread inside my chest. 

“I don't want people gossiping any more than you do,” I said. “But you live alone, I could come over, on foot. It wouldn't be any different, except, you know, in a bed.”

He looked as if he thought it over.

“All right,” he said then. He looked at me. “When?”

It was my turn to think for a moment. “Friday?”

He nodded. “Okay.”

Come Friday I sort of regretted choosing that particular day. Talia was going out with Selina and I ended up lying to her, saying I might go down to the pub later, because she thought it strange that I was planning on staying in on a Friday night. 

It was dark when I headed out. The streets were deserted, I could hear the faint sounds of TV sets coming from people's open windows, but apart from that it was quiet. I walked past well-kept gardens, the flowers all gray-looking in the shadows. I had a cigarette. It wasn't very far. I knew where Jonathan lived, but I had never been there before. The moment I stepped over the threshold it became apparent that most likely no one else had either.

Judging from the way he dressed and his car you would have thought his home would be all black and white and chrome. It wasn't. It was an old person's home. It was cramped for space, too much furniture and all of it looked old. Embroidered cushions and lace curtains, an explosion of flower patterned textiles and a million ornaments, little porcelain figurines and glass candle holders. It smelled very vaguely of potpourri, or maybe that was my imagination.

It was his grandparents' house, I assumed he had inherited it when they died, and this had to be exactly how it had looked when they passed away. It was clean, though, I didn't see a single speck of dust anywhere.

“Do you want something to drink?” he asked.

I contemplated saying no, I was here for sex, but I didn't have to be an asshole about it. 

“Sure. A beer?”

“I don't have any, I don't think. Wine?”

“Yeah, that's fine.”

I followed him out to the kitchen. 

He took out two glasses and a bottle of red wine. There was a collection of tea cups on a shelf on the wall, the kind people bought because they were beautiful, probably never used. 

“Thanks,” I said when he handed me one of the glasses.

He seemed a bit nervous. I felt not nervous exactly, but a bit unsure of how to act, what to say. This house was really weird, somewhat creepy even, and although I'd said to him meeting at his place wouldn't be any different, it was. 

I sipped my wine. It was good. 

“This is good,” I said.

He smiled a little. I wondered what he usually did on Friday nights. He didn't have any friends, that I knew of. He talked down to people, nobody liked that. I had never seen him at the pub. Wasn't he lonely? He had no family. Maybe he was the kind of person who didn't need other people. 

I wasn't good at making small talk, he told me about the wine, but after that it got quiet. I downed what was left in my glass, not caring that he probably thought that sacrilegious. 

“Should we go upstairs?” I said. I assumed that was where his bedroom was.

“Yes.” He placed his glass on the kitchen counter. 

I followed him up the narrow staircase, staring at his ass, so I missed how low the overhanging landing was when we got close to the top of the stairs, and I hit my head.

“Shit!” I pressed my hand to my head.

Jonathan turned around. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“Yeah.” That really hurt though.

“I have ice, if you want?”

“No, I'm good. Thanks.”

He smiled a little and I had to smile back, feeling a bit foolish.

His bedroom had the same kind of horrible wallpaper as the rest of the house, but aside from that it did look a little different in there, a lot less cluttered, no ornaments. The bed was a single, but I didn't say anything about that. I didn't feel like making any jokes, because seeing how he lived made me feel bad. It was sad, and I wondered if he knew it. 

We looked at each other. This was new. Not being pressed for time, not worrying about being interrupted, or caught in the act. I moved forward to kiss him, then stopped myself.

“Do you like to kiss?” I said. “Because if you don't...” I thought about his remark about my face, aware that the worst scar cut right through my mouth. 

“No, I mean, yes. I do.”

I looked at him. We were standing close. 

“Alright,” I said. 

We kissed and it was almost like previous times, we were both still fully clothed. Then I took half a step back and pulled my sweater and my t-shirt over my head in one move. I really liked the look on his face, I could see desire in his eyes. I felt it too, and I was eager to see him unbutton his shirt. I helped him pull it off and dropped it to the floor, then I slid my hands over his chest, his shoulders his back. He was slim, but not scrawny, and all that hot skin, the wiry muscles beneath it, felt great. I could feel his hands on me too, firm and warm against my chest. I was hairier than he was and he seemed to like it.

He slid his hands up to my neck and we kissed again. We got out of the rest of our clothes and into his bed. There wasn't a lot of room in it, but it didn't matter much because we were pressing close to each other anyway. 

It was new and exciting, but at the same time we knew each other well enough to know what the other liked, to a degree. I kissed and licked my way down his stomach, then paused.

“Do you want me to?” I asked, looking up at him.

“Um... yeah, only if you want to...”

I smiled a little then took him in my mouth. I could hear his breaths, quick and shallow. When I came back up I kissed him, tongue and all, just to be a dick, because I was pretty sure he wouldn't like that, not when I'd just had my lips on that other part of him. 

He didn't; he kissed me back sort of, but was trying to turn his head at the same time.

“Sorry,” I said, because that really wasn't very nice of me. 

I wondered how many guys he'd been with. Blowing someone had been the first thing I did and it was the first thing I had done to me too. In my experience, and I'd heard friends say the same thing, blow jobs was gay sex 101. 

I looked at Jonathan and he looked back at me. 

“I'm sorry,” I said again and kissed his shoulder, then his neck. 

I felt his mouth against my skin, his tongue, and his hands. 

I leaned back against the pillows, on my back, when he took out the lube. This was a lot more comfortable than when standing up, and it felt better too, his fingers inside me. 

“That feels really good,” I said. 

He looked at me and I looked back. God, he was sexy, he looked really fucking hot, doing this, and I had totally missed it before because he was always behind me. His erection was straining up towards his stomach, his pupils were so blown his pale eyes looked dark. 

I was still on my back when he pushed inside. I hadn't offered to turn around and he hadn't asked. I could watch him and touch him. He didn't find the right spot, though.

“Wait,” I said. 

We shifted our positions a bit. 

“There?” he asked.

“No.”

I gasped when he finally did. It felt amazing. He hit it, with just the right amount of force, again and again and my whole body felt euphorically good. I clutched at his back, his ass. I closed my eyes, then I met his gaze. 

“Don't come yet,” I said. 

“It's getting hard not to.”

I gripped his hips, hard.

“Don't do that,” he said. “You're making it worse.”

I smiled.

“You like it rough?” I said. 

He didn't reply, but that put some images in my head, and my orgasm hit me, crashed through me, and I groaned. He thrust a few more times and he looked amazing when he came. 

We caught our breaths for a short moment, then he pulled out. That was fucking awesome. 

I wanted a cigarette, but he didn't light one, even though I knew he smoked, so I didn't ask if I could smoke in here. 

He was right next to me, all sweaty and warm just like me. This was cuddle territory and I wasn't sure how I felt about that, or how he felt, but the bed wasn't wide enough for us not to touch.

“You're as good as a pro,” I said. 

He grimaced. “That's tasteless,” he said. 

I smiled, then I leaned over and kissed him. He kissed me back without hesitation now. I realized I wouldn't have minded a bit of cuddling, but he got up then, pulled off the condom and walked out of the room. He was back pretty soon and handed me some paper tissues. 

I wiped myself off, while he stood there, naked, and looked at me. 

“I didn't even touch you,” he said. 

I glanced up at him and smiled.

“Yeah you did, your dick touched me just fine,” I said.

I felt a ludicrous sort of pride, as if I had accomplished something spectacular. 

I got up from the bed. “Where's the bathroom?” 

“Across the hall.”

The bathroom was tiny and it had probably been renovated in the seventies – everything in there was brown and orange. When I got back to the bedroom Jonathan had pulled on his pants and was busy buttoning his shirt. I got dressed too. 

“Let's do this again,” I said. 

He nodded. He smiled a little, and I smiled back. That was some great sex, and we both knew it. 

“All right, see you,” I said. 

I headed towards the stairs. 

“Dorrance?”

I turned my head, he was in the doorway to the bedroom. He had never called me by my name before, not my first name, or my last name, or my nickname. 

“Have you told anyone?”

I shook my head.

“Not even your sister?”

“No.” I looked at him. “But why would it matter if she knew?”

“I suppose she might find it funny,” he said and something like a wry smile twisted his mouth. 

He was worried that Talia might laugh? 

“She wouldn't,” I said. “But I haven't told her.”

He nodded.

I thought about it when I walked back home, though. She might actually laugh, because the whole thing was kind of ridiculous. But there was something odd about the way he said it, that he even asked in the first place. I couldn't quite put my finger on it.


	5. Chapter 5

It was a blazing hot day. I was in the field behind the garden center. We probably looked sort of funny out there, sweating like pigs in the sun. Nyssa had figured out that if she worked in a bikini she'd still get a tan and would come back to school looking like she'd had a fantastic summer. Rita, another woman who worked for us, had tied her t-shirt up just below her bust and she was fifty-eight years old. I took my shirt off, and so did, Henry, another one of our employees. 

That's why I was bare-chested when I went to meet Jonathan when he showed up.

“You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?” he said. 

I smiled a little at him. 

“I really only came to pick up that wreath,” he said. “I figured maybe you'd come by, again?”

He met my gaze. 

“Yeah. Aren't you melting in that suit?”

He was staring at me and I worked pretty hard to look like this, so it was flattering. Also, I imagined he was warm, sweating behind that perfect exterior. Getting a hard on, maybe? I was, just thinking about it. 

We looked at each other. I glanced at his crotch. I could see the outline of his erection.

“Jesus Christ,” he said, sounding a bit exasperated.

“Come on.”

There was no one in sight that could see us. I opened a side door to the building and more or less shoved him inside. Then the first door to the right, which was the customers' bathroom. I locked the door behind us, then we were on each other. 

It was as if that great time we'd had at his place made me want him more. The memory of it was turning me on in a whole new way. He seemed to feel the same way.

I was sweaty and his clothes were as fine as they always were, but I didn't care, I wanted him disheveled. We got our pants down to our knees and then I pushed him up against the door, grinding myself against him. I wasn't entirely sure what he thought about it, I had him pinned, but he was kissing me back. 

I thought about getting a hand in between us, but it felt great as it was, my dick against his. He was breathing jerkily and broke of the kiss to gasp. His hands were on my ass, squeezing. I had mine on his hips. His thighs against mine. Heat and desire swirled around in my groin, tightening in my balls. I came, panting against his cheek. I got down on my knees then, and it didn't take long before he came in my mouth, hot and bitter. 

I swallowed. I hadn't that other time, but that was just because I didn't want to give him the satisfaction. Now I didn't care. 

I got up on my feet again. I wanted disheveled and that was how he looked. He looked so hot. His clothes were wrinkled and his hair was messy. I had come all over his stomach and his shirt. 

We looked at each other. He had this wonderful, overwhelmed look on his face. I kind of felt like that too.

“Are you mad about your clothes?” I asked.

“Not mad, exactly,” he said. 

I smiled a little, I couldn't help myself. I wanted to kiss him, but he probably didn't want me to, given that I'd just swallowed his come. I could still taste him on my tongue. 

He took some paper towels and started to clean himself up. I did the same. I was finished before he was and I looked at him. 

“Can you hold these?” he said and handed me his glasses. I took them and he splashed some cold water on his face. When he had dried himself off with another paper towel he took them back and put them on. 

He didn't look exactly as he had when he showed up, but almost. 

“Isn't it tiring?” I said. “Being perfect all the time?”

He met my gaze in the mirror.

“I'm not perfect all the time,” he said. 

He turned to face me.

“Isn't it tiring going to the gym all the time?” he said. 

“Sometimes, but it makes me feel good too, release of tension and being healthy, and all that.”

He nodded a little. Maybe it was the same, just different types of vanities and hang-ups. 

We managed to sneak out of there again, undetected. 

“Where did you go?” Nyssa said when I got back.

“A customer,” I said. 

Knowing what I did, to my ears that sounded almost as if I was admitting to being a prostitute. 

“I've finished this entire lot,” she said. “What do I do now?”

She came home with me after work and we swung by the pizza place in Blackgate Hollow on the way. It was Talia's day off so she was at home when we got there. 

“I just gotta take a shower before we eat,” I said.

“Me too,” Nyssa said. “Talia, can I borrow some clothes?”

“Of course. Just take whatever you want.” Talia gestured towards her bedroom.

I took the first turn in the bathroom. I hadn't brought any clean clothes with me, so after I had showered I wrapped the towel around my waist before I stepped out the door. 

“It's all yours,” I said to Nyssa who was waiting outside. 

I went into my bedroom to get dressed and Talia followed me in there. That was also an observable difference between her and Nyssa. I didn't feel comfortable being naked in front of Nyssa, but with Talia I didn't mind. Maybe it came from living together, or maybe it was because I still thought of Nyssa as a child. 

“Did you hear about Bruce's mom?” Talia said.

“No, what about her?”

“She's in the hospital. Something with her heart.”

I pulled on boxers and a t-shirt. 

“He tell you that?” I asked. 

“No. I haven't talked to him.”

He was treating her like shit. And for what? A woman who was clearly in a happy relationship with someone else. As far as I was concerned, he could pine away, let him rot. 

When Nyssa was done in the bathroom we had pizza, and then we watched a movie. I drove her home at the end of the night. The lights were still on in most of the downstairs windows in our parents' house. 

I got out of the car.

“Where are you going?” Nyssa said. 

I frowned at her. “I was gonna go in and say hi,” I said. “I used to live here, you know.”

She made a face at me. “Okay,” she said. I made a face back at her.

Mom and Dad were in the upstairs lounge, watching TV. 

“Hi.” Mom looked up and smiled. “Did you have a good time?”

“Yes,” Nyssa said.

I nodded. 

“I'm gonna go to bed, actually,” Nyssa said. “Good night.”

I sat down in one of the armchairs. 

“Did you hear about Martha Wayne?” Mom said. 

“Yes, I did.”

“It's so sad, I really hope it's not as serious as it sounds. She's not very old. It wasn't that long ago that they were here, and she seemed really healthy. When was that?”

She looked at Dad.

“It was that dinner...” he said. “About three weeks ago?”

He turned to me.

“You've seen the six-month's results yet?” he asked. “For the garden center?”

“Mm. The accountant isn't quite finished, he said next week. But it looks good, I've had a look at it.”

Dad nodded. 

“Good,” he said and smiled a little. 

I didn't stay very long, they were going to bed too and I headed home again.

**

“No, I wanted juice without pulp,” Talia said when I came out of the convenient store and handed her the bottle.

I'd popped in there to buy us something to drink, it was another warm day, and cigarettes.

“Yeah, I know.”

She held up the bottle. I'd bought the wrong one.

“Okay, here take mine,” I said and offered her mine instead. 

“What is it?”

“Pear.”

“Okay.”

We switched bottles. 

“I don't like fluids that has things in it,” she said.

We continued down the street.

“I just thought of a really bad joke,” she said.

“I know. I could hear you tell it in your head.”

She laughed and I smiled.

A lot of people were outside in their gardens and almost all the windows in the houses we passed were open. 

“We should have more of the same days off,” Talia said. She smiled and waved back at the Robertsons, who were sitting on their patio. 

I nodded.

“One of us doesn't always have to be at the center. Nyssa can be the boss when we're not there.”

I laughed. I finished my juice, with pulp, then threw the bottle in Mrs Jordan's trash can. She wasn't outside to see me. 

“Selina,” I said. “She could very well be made manager. There are things we have to be there for, but the day to day running of the place, she can handle that.”

I took out my cigarettes and lit one. 

“We just have to make it official enough,” Talia said. “So that she gets the authority, the others need to listen to her.”

“I don't think that will be a problem. And we're talking a few days here and there, and there are phones.”

“Yeah.”

We had reached the old stone bridge, stopped in the middle of it and leaned against the wall. The water flowed slowly and evenly below us. Talia was with her back to it, her elbows on the smooth stones. She was wearing a pink tank top, no make up, and her hair was uncombed. 

When she dolled herself up she was stunning, and with the everyday makeup she usually wore she looked great, but like this she looked wonderfully ordinary. She had a hint of dark circles under her eyes. It was almost like seeing someone naked, women without makeup, even though there was nothing sexual about it. It was just a different kind of state of undress.

“Give me that,” she said and held out two fingers. I handed her my cigarette and she took a drag. 

She didn't really smoke, special occasions only. At parties, at beautiful places, which I suppose this counted as. The sun had started to set, giving everything a golden hue. 

If I could save up the money I might buy one of the houses that were right here by the river. The view was fantastic. 

“You want it back?” she asked, holding out the cigarette.

“No, you can have the rest.”

She smiled. She leaned forward and kissed my cheek.

“You are so great,” she said. “Truly, truly great.”

I looked at her. 

“I'm gonna buy one of these houses,” I said.

She turned around, facing the same direction as I was.

“Which one?” she said. 

“I don't know.”

She gazed out over the row of houses.

“Maybe that one,” she said, pointing at one with the fingers still holding the cigarette. She took another drag then dropped it down into the river.

We crossed to the other side of the bridge, then took another route home.


	6. Chapter 6

Jonathan hadn't given me his cellphone number, but finding his home number was easy. I took out the Wayne's Hill phone book, it was a very thin book, and there he was. Crane, Jonathan, and his number. I called it, sitting on the couch at home. 

“Hello?” His voice sounded almost suspicious. 

“Hi, it's Dorrance.” I usually said Bane, that's what everybody called me, but he hadn't. I thought maybe he didn't want to be reminded of his own, rather more cruel, nickname, he had to know about it. Or maybe it was just his meticulous personality. 

“Hi.”

“Um... are you busy?”

It was quiet for a few seconds.

“No.”

“Can I come over?”

There wasn't really any point in trying to come off as less eager than I was. That wasn't my style anyway. Talia had said to me once that I hounded the guys I liked, and I should stop because I was scary. I tried to tone it down after that. 

“Yes,” he said. 

I threw on my jacket and walked over there. It felt like the windows of all the houses I passed were watching. There could very well be people there, nosy busybodies with nothing better to do. I ducked into a garden and took a shortcut behind another house. All this cloak and dagger stuff made me feel slightly ridiculous. 

I went around to Jonathan's front door and rang the bell. He opened it pretty quickly.

“Hi,” I said as I stepped inside.

“Hi.”

I didn't wait for him to offer me something to drink this time, I kissed him as soon as he had closed the door. 

I collapsed onto my stomach after we were done and Jonathan dropped down beside me. We were both out of breath. I could feel his leg and his hip against mine.

“You need to buy a bigger bed,” I said, my face partly buried in the pillow.

“You're unusually big.”

I smiled and looked at him.

“Have you ever even had anyone else here?” I said.

He looked back at me. He didn't answer, then he got up. Why did I ask that? I knew he hadn't. He couldn't have, his house was a senior citizen freak show. 

“I didn't mean it like that,” I said after him when he left the room. 

I heard the water tap in the bathroom. I should wipe myself off too, my ass was sticky and I was lying in my own come, I could feel the wet spot against my stomach, but I didn't move.

I turned around when he came back into the bedroom.

“I didn't mean it like that,” I said. “I just meant that the bed is small.”

“I know.”

He didn't look as if he was coming back to bed so I got up. I went into the bathroom and cleaned up. Then I got dressed. 

“You want my number?” I said. “To my cell?”

“You mean so I can order a booty call?”

I frowned at him. “Yeah, if you want to call it that.”

He handed me his phone. That felt weirdly intimate, almost like a sign of trust. I put my name and number in, then dialed my own phone before I handed it back. 

We texted each other after that, to decide when. Even if I was my own boss, and he was too, it was probably a good thing to stop having sex during work hours. We didn't talk very much. I asked him how much his car cost, because I was curious about that, and he told me. I had sort of figured out how he could afford it; he obviously hadn't bought anything else for years, except his clothes and, I assumed, the food he ate. He actually asked me how I got the scars on my face. I said it was an accident when I was little, the same answer I always gave. 

I still hadn't told Talia about him. I was having pretty much the best sex of my life, and I didn't tell her. I didn't feel that ashamed about sleeping with him, not like I had in the beginning, so I didn't know why. That's when it occurred to me that maybe that was the reason he asked me if I had told her. To see if I was too embarrassed to tell even her. Could it be that intricate, or was I overthinking?

I decided to tell her then. If nothing else, lying about where I was going when I headed out was getting old.

We were at home, the windows in the living room were open, and I could smell rain on the air that drifted in. It would be a relief when the heat wave broke, and it would be good for our sprinkler system at work to get a rest. 

Talia was sitting on the couch, her feet on the edge of the coffee table and she was painting her toenails. The TV was on, but it was nothing interesting. I had sunk deep into the armchair, my legs stretched out under the table. 

“You know Jonathan Crane?” I said.

“Yes.” She was concentrated on her nails and the tiny brush. 

“I'm sleeping with him.”

She looked up. There was pause for a second before she said anything.

“Really?” she said. 

She looked as if she was thinking about it for a moment.

“I didn't know he was gay,” she said then. “Although I can't say I'm overly surprised.”

She put the lid back on her nail polish bottle. 

“Is he any good?” she asked.

I nodded. The first rain drops hit the windows and I got up to close them.

“Does he have a big penis?” she asked.

“Pretty normal.”

I got the windows closed, it took a bit of fiddling and some brute force, because they were old and askew.

“I'm a bit surprised you're sleeping with him,” she said. “He seems very peculiar and not very nice.”

Her brow was slightly furrowed. She wasn't laughing, which was good, because Jonathan didn't really deserve that. Nor did I. I sat down in the armchair again.

“Who does who?” she asked. 

I gave her a look.

“No, it's very interesting,” she said. “I want to know.” She threw a pillow at me and I threw it back.

“Oh, watch my feet!”

“So far, he's been doing me.”

Talia took down her feet from the table.

“This is very exciting,” she said.

“No, it isn't.”

Unless you were me. 

“But it is,” she said. “He lives right here in our village.”

She put her elbow on the back of the couch and leaned her head in her hand.

“I think Nyssa is a bit disappointed that you're not camp,” she said then. 

I was watching the TV, but now I turned my eyes to her.

“Why?”

“I think she would have enjoyed that, gossiping about guys.”

“Like you do, you mean?”

She smiled. 

“I just think she views it as this secret pathway into the world of men, or boys,” she said. 

“I'm not a secret pathway to anything,” I said. 

I remembered that I had promised Nyssa to keep in touch more. In a way I did, because we saw each other at the garden center almost every day, but that wasn't the same thing. I felt both touched and guilty when I thought about what she had said that day in her room. Now Talia was reminding me about it. 

I took out my phone and sent a text to Nyssa. I just wrote what's up, basically. I got a reply pretty quickly. She was with her friends, at a friend's house, a smiley. 

 

**

I was on my bed, reading. It was half past eleven in the morning, but the weather was so bad it didn't feel like daytime; the sky was a dark gray outside the window. I had the day off, I had been to the gym and I planned to spend the rest of the day pretty much right here. The book was new, I'd bought it the day before, and it was thick as a brick and had really tiny print. 

I was lying on my side, my back to the door and I nearly jumped out of my skin when I suddenly felt a hand on my arm. My heart rate had shot sky high, but I could breathe again when I saw who it was. Mom. 

“I'm sorry,” she said and she had an apologetic look on her face. “I knocked, but you didn't hear. The door wasn't locked, and I did say hello...”

Her hair was plastered to her head, even though she had probably just walked from the car to the door. I got up and got her a towel. 

“Thanks.”

“Do you want tea? Coffee?”

“Coffee would be nice.”

We headed out to the kitchen and I took out coffee and filters. 

“I was just driving by,” she said. “I had a doctor's appointment.”

I looked at her.

“Just a routine thing,” she said. “Nothing to worry about.”

She smiled. “I'm all about giving scares today, apparently,” she said. “How are things with you?”

“Fine.”

I took out two cups from the cupboard. We sat down at the kitchen table. The rain was hammering against the window. 

“Did you drive in this weather?” I said.

“Yes. Insane, aren't I?”

I smiled.

My phone was on the tabletop. It buzzed and the screen lit up with a text. 'Jonathan: Tonight 9 o'clock?'

Mom turned her gaze away but she had seen it. She smiled a little.

“I'm not going to ask any questions,” she said. 

She knew the names of pretty much all of my friends, at least those who lived around here, so she knew it wasn't any of them. She probably didn't connect the name 'Jonathan' with the haughty undertaker, though.

“There's not much to tell, anyway,” I said. 

She looked at me. “I hope you'll bring someone home one day, though,” she said. “And I hope it isn't our fault in anyway, mine and dad's, that you haven't yet.”

“No.”

“There just haven't been anyone that special? Or that serious?”

I'd had a couple of boyfriends, but no relationship that lasted so long that I brought them home to meet my parents. 

“Because I think dad would be fine with it, if that's worrying you. I don't know, is it?”

I took a deep breath.

“I don't know. A little, maybe.”

He'd gone really quiet when I came out to them. We'd been sitting in the downstairs living room and I had been nervous to tell them. In some way it was as if he never truly snapped out of it. To be fair, he wasn't a very talkative person at all. 

He never said a bad word, never told me I was sick or that I had to change, or anything like that, but he didn't understand me either. In his mind being gay was an oddity, and it was as if he couldn't really relate to me anymore. That was strange, in a way, because he had never been the kind of man who bonded with other men by talking about women, joking about tits and asses and that sort of thing. 

I looked out the window, at the whipping tree branches. 

“He's very proud of you,” Mom said. “He just doesn't know how to say it.”

He was a business man, he owned a small chain of stores and that was mostly what we talked about when we saw each other, business. 

I turned my gaze back to her and smiled. I didn't want her to worry about me.

When she had left I went back to my bed and my book. I'd seen books at Jonathan's place too. There was always one on the bedside table and there was a bookshelf in the upstairs hallway. I replied to his text message with a 'Yes'.


	7. Chapter 7

Harvey called me and asked me to be his best man at his wedding. He and Rachel were getting married the following Saturday. I had never been anyone's best man before, most of my friends weren't even married. I was sort of flattered that he asked me, actually.

“We want to keep it really small,” he said. “That's the reason for the short notice, we just decided to do it. So, do you want to?”

“Yes, I'd be honored to,” I said. 

“It's just going to be, well, me and Rachel, and two witnesses. You can bring a date or a friend, of course. We thought we'd go out and have dinner at a restaurant afterward.”

“Sure.”

“Four o'clock?”

“I'll be there.”

I didn't have a date, though. I knew I didn't need one, it wasn't my wedding, but Harvey had sounded as if Rachel's friend was bringing someone and sometimes being the odd man out didn't feel so good. 

Jonathan was out of the question, we weren't even dating, we had never done anything other than having sex and quarreling. And I couldn't think of a friend to bring either. Talia wasn't an option. The whole thing with Bruce was too sensitive, even if Rachel couldn't be blamed for any of it and she was in fact marrying another man. Selina was the only other woman I could think of, but she was Talia's best friend, so that wasn't the best idea either. 

I had male friends, but everyone who lived around here was straight, and they'd be mistaken for my date or boyfriend and that could get awkward. Barsad would come, though, if I asked him. He was my best friend. And he bore no ill feelings towards either Bruce Wayne or any past girlfriends of his. I ended up asking him, simply because I didn't want to go alone. 

“Sure,” he said when I called him up. 

“You'll look like my date,” I said. 

“Yeah, but I'm kind of used to that. You're not so bad.”

I smiled. I liked being alone, except for at social functions of any kind. It was two completely different things, spending time by myself was relaxing, but the thought of feeling left out in a group of people made me feel ill-at-ease in a way I couldn't explain.

On the wedding day we met up with Harvey and Rachel outside the church in Smallville. I had put on a suit that probably not even Jonathan would be able to find any fault with. 

Everybody smiled and shook hands. Harvey knew Barsad, if not very well. I introduced him as my friend to the others, and of course they thought it was a euphemism, but he'd said he didn't care. Rachel's bridesmaid was called Tanya and her date, who was her husband, was called Richard. They had both come down from Metropolis. 

The wedding ceremony didn't take very long, with hardly any guests to entertain with songs and whatnot. It was still beautiful, though, the way Harvey and Rachel were smiling at each other. After the ceremony we went to a restaurant close by. It was nice, a happy occasion, and I had a good time. 

“They're gonna get it on tonight,” Barsad said when we were in the car on the way back home. 

I chuckled. “Probably. Your mind amazes me, though.”

“What? It's their wedding night.”

“Yeah.”

“We should go to a pub, we're all dressed up and look smashing.”

I was thinking about going over to Jonathan's. I took my phone out and held it by the steering wheel so I could see the road. 

“Who are you texting?” Barsad asked. “You fucker, you've got someone!”

I had sent the text, asking Jonathan if he wanted to meet, but Barsad hadn't read it. He was just guessing. I put the phone down in my lap.

“I might,” I said. 

“Who?”

I didn't want to say. I had told Talia, but that was different.

“Around here?” Barsad said. 

“Not in this field of wheat in particular.”

And I didn't 'have' someone. It was just sex.

Barsad was chewing on a nail, gazing out the window.

“Is it the undertaker?” he said then, turning to me. “Crane?”

I almost took my eyes off the road, but stopped myself, thinking of plausible deniability. I didn't say anything, but that pretty much said it all. 

“Jesus...” Barsad said.

That rubbed me the wrong way. 

“So what?” I said. 

“No, I'm just surprised, is all.”

“How did you even know he was gay?”

“Could he be anything else?”

“You've lived out here in the fucking boonies for too long.”

“Maybe I have.”

It got quiet. Neither one of us said anything else, I dropped him off outside his house and then I headed home. Jonathan had replied to my text, saying I could come over, so after I had parked the car I walked over there.

“Wow,” he said when he let me in. “Look at you.” He raised an eyebrow. “It's nice, as a change, but I think I prefer the thug look.”

I glared at him. I owned a decent amount of nice looking clothes, thank you very much. I wore cargo pants at work, but that didn't count, that was work clothes.

“Why do you have to be so rude?” I said. 

“I'm just speaking my mind.”

“Do you wanna fuck or not?”

“Alright.”

He turned towards the stairs and I followed. The sex was good, a little rough, which felt good. 

“Can I smoke in here?” I asked afterward.

“No.” He got up. He never stayed in bed any longer than it took for him to catch his breath. I felt cuddle deprived and it irritated me that I felt that way.

“Where do you smoke?” I said after him as he went to the bathroom. 

“Outside the back door.”

“Let's go there then.”

He expected me to leave, I always did after we were done. I got up and crowded him in the bathroom. There was space enough for two people cleaning themselves up, but just barely. 

“Okay,” he said. 

When I got back to the bedroom he was getting dressed. I pulled on my boxers, my pants and my shirt, buttoned a couple of buttons. We went downstairs. There was a backdoor in the kitchen that led out to a small set of stairs, flanked by the facade to the living room on one side and a large rosebush on the other. An ashtray stood on the uppermost step. 

I sat down next to it and lit a cigarette. Jonathan lit one too.

“Why don't you sit down?” I said. “I just came all over you, planting your ass where someone might have stepped shouldn't be a problem.”

“Dressing up really does wonders for your mood.” He sat down next to me though. 

The small garden in front of us was dark. The light from the kitchen window above us dispersed the shadows a bit where we were sitting.

There was a reason he didn't have any friends. Nobody liked him. I didn't even like him. Except maybe I did. I didn't really know him. I turned towards him and kissed him. He pulled away. 

“Okay,” I said and turned to face the garden again. I didn't want to like him. I could feel it, even now, the fucking heartbreak of it, looming in front of me. 

“We're outside,” he said after a moment.

We were more or less hidden from view where we were sitting and it was in the middle of the night. 

“And we're sitting outside your house having a smoke really fucking late on a Saturday night,” I said. “I'd say people might guess what we've been doing anyway.”

I didn't even know what it was about me that he was ashamed about. He'd never really specified and I hadn't either, regarding him. But he had to know he wasn't well-liked. 

He was a snob, sure, but I owned a business. My family was a lot more prominent than his, my dad was on a number of committees and things, they had money. I was reasonably good looking, except for the scars. I had friends. I had a degree. What the hell did he have to be snobbish about?

“Am I that embarrassing?” I said.

He didn't reply.

“People already know you're gay, you know,” I said.

He turned his gaze to me. 

“You're not doing a very good job of hiding it,” I said. 

“You think you're so clever,” he said.

“Yes, I am actually.”

I didn't come here to fight with him. I came here because it could feel so good. The heat and desire and the mutual understanding that we were turned on by each other. I was a fucking idiot. 

“I have to go,” I said and got up. 

I walked around the house, out onto the street and then home. 

**

I didn't see him the following week. He didn't text me and I didn't text him. I was angry and I felt as if I had made a fool out of myself. I wanted to get over him. I didn't want to be interested in him in the first place. 

Barsad called, though. He didn't apologize, not exactly, he just asked if I wanted to go shoot some pool. So I did that. As far as making amends went, he kind of needed to work on it – he was great at pool, and at dart and all things like that, we used to call him Deadshot, so I lost, but he didn't mention Jonathan. 

I went home to my parents for lunch the next Saturday and I was there when I got a text from Jonathan. 'Wanna come over tonight?'

I didn't know if he was doing it on purpose, but he was mimicking how I wrote. I usually wrote either 'Wanna meet?' or 'Can I come over?'. He never wrote like that. His texts were oddly formal. Brief, sure, but not abbreviated, like normal people's texts. 

“And here I am, talking to myself,” Dad said.

“Sorry.” I put my phone away without replying to the text. 

After we had eaten I went outside to have a cigarette. I sat down in one of the lawn chairs beneath the apple tree not far from the front door. I saw a car, dark green and shiny, turn up the driveway. Nyssa got out and she smiled and waved at the car before it drove off.

“Hi,” she said when she spotted me.

“That your boyfriend?” I asked.

“No.” She frowned at me. “My friend's mom dropped me off.”

She sat down in one of the other chairs.

“I don't even have a boyfriend,” she said. She turned her head and looked at me. “Do you?”

I shook my head. “No.” I took a drag on my cigarette.

“At least I'm not the last person who earth who doesn't then,” she said.

She was very pretty and I could imagine that most boys her age thought so too. 

“No, at least there's two of us,” I said and she laughed. 

I smiled. 

“Is Talia at work?” she asked.

I nodded, taking another drag on the cigarette. 

“We're going to Smallville tomorrow, wanna come?”

“Maybe, what time?”

She shrugged. “When we feel like it. When Talia is ready.”

I smiled. Smallville was a small town, as the name suggested, but it was the largest one nearby. There was a movie theater and some shops and restaurants, and a nightclub as well. 

That was actually how I found out Jonathan was gay. They had organized a lgbt-night at the nightclub and I decided to go. It was just as low-rent and pathetic as you would imagine a nightclub in a small town to be. The crowd was thin, too, and a large part of it seemed to be made up of women who thought it would be a gag to go. But I saw Jonathan there, and he saw me. I didn't stay long, I had lived in Gotham City where there were proper nightclubs. 

Nyssa and I got talking about suntans, and held our forearms next to each other to compare. She was only a little darker than I was. I tanned pretty well, but come winter I'd be pale again. I thought about Jonathan and his creamy white skin. He had a hint of freckles across his nose and cheekbones, but he probably didn't spend a lot of time outdoors, at least not in any state of undress. 

Dad came out through the front door.

“This is what I was talking about earlier,” he said. 

“Hi Dad,” Nyssa said.

“Hi pumpkin.”

He handed me a folder about a new, smart sprinkler system. He'd seen it somewhere and taken one to give to me and Talia.

“Mom had tidied it away,” he said. “They should put her in charge of radioactive waste, they'd never find it again.”

I smiled a little. 

“This probably doesn't come for free,” I said. 

“No, but maybe at some point in the future,” Dad said. 

“Thanks.”

I got up. “I should get going.”

“Mom just made coffee,” Dad said, gesturing to the house. 

“Oh, okay.”

I could stay for coffee too. I wasn't really in any hurry. I texted Jonathan back, a short 'OK'.

The first thing I saw when I got over to Jonathan's place was my jacket and tie hanging on the coat rack by the door. They were wrapped in a plastic cover; he'd had them dry-cleaned. 

“Why did you do that?” I asked. 

He shrugged a little. 

“Okay, thanks.”

I looked at him. He was in a pair of dark pants, and a light blue shirt, no jacket and no glasses. He actually had his shirt-sleeves rolled up, each sleeve folded two times. 

Things felt a bit awkward, I felt awkward. To just start making out didn't seem natural. It was pretty much what we had done before, not much preamble to speak of, but now there was a gap of sorts between us. To be honest I wasn't sure I felt like doing anything, even though he was as handsome as always.

“Do you have something to drink?” I asked.

He pursed his lips in thought for a second. “I might have some wine,” he said. 

I followed him into the kitchen. 

“Actually,” I said when he looked in a cupboard. “You could just make some tea.”

He turned his head to me. “Tea?”

“Yeah. Why not?”

“Alright.”

I didn't feel like drinking alcohol right now. He started making tea and I looked at the two potted plants he had in the window above the sink. The only things that felt alive in here, except for him. 

I hadn't been an expert on plants before. I helped my parents with their garden work when I lived at home, but that was the extent of it. Talia was the one with the particular interest in plants and gardening. I liked the mixture of physical labor and the business aspect, that was the good thing about running a garden center. I would have gotten restless sitting in an office all day. 

But I'd gotten a crash course in plants when we bought the place, and it had been a very steep learning curve after that. 

“You need to repot these,” I said. 

Jonathan smiled a little. “Okay,” he said.

“I don't need some snide remark about how I'm some glorified gardener.” 

“I wasn't going to make one. You always seem to think the worst of me.”

That wasn't true. I was working under the assumption that he was a human being, just like everyone else. He was the one who always insisted on making things ugly, at least lately. But if I had feelings he didn't have, that didn't necessarily make him the bad guy. 

He put the tea cups on the kitchen table. One of the windows was open an inch, letting in some fresh air. It felt very strange to sit there opposite him. The air between us felt tense. I looked out the window; I could see the top of the rosebush and I thought of sitting on the steps next to it, and wanting to kiss him, but he had ruined it. It was just a kiss, we'd been far more intimate with each other, it wasn't a declaration of commitment or anything like that. There were guys who bought you breakfast the day after, even though you both knew it was just a one-night-stand. I'd done that. 

“I'm a nice guy,” I said.

Jonathan looked mildly surprised by that statement.

“I'm sure you are,” he said then. 

“I'm just saying, you don't have to...” I didn't know how to finish. I felt like I was making a fool out of myself, all over again. 

Jonathan put his cup down on the table. 

“I'm not sure this is working,” I said. 

It was quiet for a few seconds. 

“Well, if you've had your fun, 'nice guy', I guess that's that,” Jonathan said then.

I frowned at him. “What? No, you can't twist this around, you're the one who can't act like a human being even for two minutes.”

He met my gaze, then looked away. 

“Even if it's just sex, it doesn't have to be... just sex,” I said. Wow, that was eloquent. 

“Either way, it's still our dirty little secret.”

“I don't think like that. Not anymore. I've told people.”

He looked at me. “Who have you told?”

“Talia. A friend. My mom knows about you, although she doesn't know who you are. She thinks I'm seeing someone, I didn't give her any details.” I looked back at him. “I don't know if that pisses you off, or if that's what you wanted. But I can't do this whole... keeping something in a bubble. Maybe you can.”

He didn't have anyone to tell. He knew it, and he knew that I knew it. 

“I'm still not clear on what it is you want,” he said after a second.

I didn't even know that myself. Either I had to tell him I liked him, or I had to let it drop.

“Maybe we could try something else?” I said.

“Like what?”

“Go see a movie, go for a drink?”

He smiled a little, almost scoffed. 

“You want to go on a date?” he said.

God, I hated him right then. 

“Forget it,” I said. “I'm gonna go. I don't want to do this anymore.”

I moved to get up, but he opened his mouth then.

“I'm just not sure we have anything in common,” he said.

“How could you possibly know that? You don't know anything about me.”

“I know you're a pompous asshole.” But he smiled as he said it, and not in a condescending way. 

“Is that your idea of a compliment?”

“Perhaps.”

I shook my head. He really was one of a kind. 

“I'll make you a deal,” I said then. “Go out with me, or I won't sleep with you again.”

He looked at me and I could practically see the wheels turning in his head. As far as asking someone out, it was a very odd way of doing it, but then he was an odd guy. Most people wouldn't respond well to being blackmailed, but I could see it in his eyes when he made up his mind. He was going to say yes. I smiled.


End file.
